OVIEDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0What should come next for the future of the Oviedo Police Department? It’s a question that was brought up by the mayor of Oviedo on a social media post.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek made a Facebook post on Thursday night asking residents for their input and thoughts on two options. Should Oviedo build a police station expansion for $12+ million or move in the direction of consolidating services with the county?
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Mayor Sladek says the push by the state to eliminate or reduce property taxes could result in revenue loss for local governments that could impact funding for police, fire and infrastructure
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In 2016, residents of Oviedo voted that the city should borrow $11.4 million to build a new public safety building \u2013 but the city did not do it. In 2023, the council asked residents for permission to build a $49 million police station, but nearly 64% of Oviedo voters rejected the bond referendum
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Then the city moved to improve the existing public safety complex by adding a police annex building that would cost close to $12 million. According to Mayor Sladek, so far, the city has spent about $200,000 on design services for the new police building annex<\/p>\n
Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek made a Facebook post on Thursday night asking residents for their input and thoughts on two options. Should Oviedo build a police station expansion for $12+ million or move in the direction of consolidating services with the county?<\/p>\n
The mayor said keeping their own police department while not improving the police station is not an option \u2013 as the building is in need of repairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police department is about a half as big of a footprint as we need for the number of people we have now. We built it for the department we needed, you know, many, many years ago, we just paid it off, but the windows are leaking water. We put a new roof on it. So we’re taking some steps to keep it up, but it’s just it’s functionally obsolete in so many ways,\u201d Sladek said.<\/p>\n
The question sparked concerns among some residents who support the expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy thoughts would be to expand the Oviedo Police Department instead of consolidating with the sheriff’s. We would rather keep it local and not kind of take it more out of our hands,\u201d Oviedo resident Lori Rivera said.<\/p>\n
Others said they wouldn\u2019t mind the consolidation of services if that means saving money.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this inflation period, I don’t think we should focus on spending so much money,\u201d Oviedo resident Oscar Zorrilla said. \u201cMaybe in the future, when the city, grows up by 20 or 30,000 more residents, maybe that might be a priority, but not as of now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2016, residents of Oviedo voted that the city should borrow $11.4 million to build a new public safety building \u2013 but the city did not do it.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the council asked residents for permission to build a $49 million police station, but nearly 64% of Oviedo voters rejected the bond referendum.<\/p>\n
Then the city moved to improve the existing public safety complex by adding a police annex building that would cost close to $12 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy proposal is that we have that discussion because we know we can build a police station. We know that we can put that on the tax bill. And even if taxes are eliminated, the state will allow us to continue charging to pay off that debt for the building. But if we don’t have a way to pay our officers, that is the crux,\u201d Sladek said.<\/p>\n
With the efforts in the state of Florida to eliminate or reduce property taxes, Sladek says that could result in revenue loss for local governments that could impact funding for police, fire and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe state is making a big push to reduce property taxes. If that is to happen, the city of Oviedo does not currently have a legal way to collect money specifically for a police department. The county does, but the city does not. And that’s just a matter of state law,\u201d Sladek said.<\/p>\n
According to the mayor, in 2025, Oviedo brought in just enough property taxes to cover the cost of the police and fire departments. If that amount is decreased, it will be challenging for Oviedo to keep operating its own police department.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pro of staying with our department is we have amazing people, an amazing department. They’re doing an outstanding job. The con is we don’t know how we can collect enough money indefinitely to pay market wages,\u201d Sladek said.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News 13 reached out to the Seminole County Sheriff\u2019s Office about this proposal; in an email they said at this early stage it would be premature for the sheriff to comment on it.<\/p>\n
We also reached out to the Oviedo Police Department, and the public information officer said they didn\u2019t want to speculate on it.<\/p>\n
According to Sladek, so far, the city has spent about $200,000 on design services for the new police building annex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OVIEDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0What should come next for the future of the Oviedo Police Department? It’s a question that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2967,2161,766,115,772,139,141,140,277,1014,6390],"class_list":{"0":"post-226836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-public-safety","9":"tag-government","10":"tag-massiel-leyva","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-on-air-ticker-article","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-headlines","15":"tag-orlando-news","16":"tag-public-safety","17":"tag-seminole-county","18":"tag-topic-latest-public-safety-crime-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}